tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27729563687524333262019-05-08T04:19:22.155-04:00Ramona's VoicesRise up, voices! Speak truth to power. Bark orders to justice. Sing praises to the good. Beg alms for the poor.
Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.comBlogger459125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-88361147716357421762019-04-22T08:46:00.001-04:002019-04-27T10:33:33.969-04:00It's Spring and I'm Blossoming Somewhere Else
Spring comes to our yard
Hi, loyal readers, it's me. (You still there? Hello??) I know. I haven't been spending much time here and so neither have you. I don't blame you. The truth is, I've found another place.
A place where writers gather, along with readers. Because after all this time of going it alone I'm finding I miss my community. I need that interaction, that commiseration Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-88321471111842723582019-01-22T11:17:00.001-05:002019-01-23T08:05:27.100-05:00Political PTSD is Real. I'm Living ProofIt has come to this: I can no longer call myself a writer. Trump has broken me down. I'm a basket case trying to follow the illogical, the stupid, the crazy, the nonsensical, the sheer volume of lies and strutting and demagoging and denying and. . .
I can't do it. I can't. For months now I've been reduced to 280 character bleatings on Twitter--when I'm not annoying my friends and family all to Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-87657662895072550112018-10-24T11:09:00.001-04:002018-10-24T11:12:25.732-04:00Hello Civility, Goodbye RageI'm sick to death of having to see, hear, and worry about Donald Trump. I'm sick of having to wonder how we got here, living in a country where a ludicrous, ignorant madman is in power, where the party in power is turning a blind eye, and where midterm elections are only days away and we're still not sure the good guys will win.
We're living through times so crazy we couldn't even imagine them Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-73078047216150763062018-10-07T09:16:00.000-04:002018-10-11T12:13:21.833-04:00Kavanaugh Didn't Have to HappenI'm sickened by the vote to make Brett Kavanaugh the new Supreme Court justice. I know you are, too. The Republicans clinched it, and they want us to know there is no action, no protest strong enough against them. We can't win. They hold all the power and they're looking for more.
Nothing humanly possible can stop them when they're on a mission. They own us. Lock, stock, and barrel. The thought Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-79872324106799715432018-09-29T11:36:00.001-04:002018-09-30T09:47:38.262-04:00The Culture of Rape is over. Get The Hell Out of Our WayI'll make this short and to the point: If you're a man and you've ever tried to undress a woman when she didn't want you to, if you've ever forced her legs apart, manhandled her, scared her into submission, tried to shame or coerce her into having sex with you--if you've ever used force to get your way? You're either a rapist who succeeded or a rapist who failed.
The Department of Justice Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-79404433209485062162018-09-09T17:48:00.001-04:002018-09-10T12:07:18.064-04:00America's Fault Lines: How Trump Thrives
I haven't written here for a long time, but it's not my fault.
Somebody's to blame and I'm going to find out who it is.
I'll check on it and get back to you. I promise.
So, we're good? Okay, moving on:
Donald Trump is president of the United States (I know!) and the reason he's president is because nobody in the entire country cared about the little people left behind when the Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-25833961247900378632018-07-04T11:38:00.001-04:002018-07-04T14:03:48.291-04:00Hanging On To Our Independence on the Fourth Of July
This year, 2018, has been a trying one, but I don't have to tell you. This Independence Day feels like the last of the best for the country I love and have called home for 80 years. It's hard for me to celebrate when I'm in a constant rage over the barbarism the Trump regime inflicts on us hour by hour, day by day.
Their particular form of gleeful inhumanity (See Jon Stewart) is a Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-26770603528251589822018-06-24T20:43:00.000-04:002018-07-05T11:05:38.942-04:00Trouble at the Red Hen
I've been thinking a lot about the Red Hen controversy--about whether Stephanie Wilkinson, the owner of the restaurant, should have told Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave her establishment. No guesswork for me. I'm on the side of Stephanie Wilkinson.
I've heard the back-and-forths, the calls for civility, the need to allow everyone the ability to at least eat a meal in peace. I get it.Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-35012965871817838392018-06-22T18:36:00.001-04:002018-06-24T16:34:43.930-04:00The Children are Lost and Someone Must PayThe stories coming out of Texas this week are horrific and heartbreaking. They're so far past maddening they've now entered territory where heads explode.
No other way to put this: our government has been kidnapping refugee children and hiding them all across the country.
They move them in the dead of night and won't say where they've gone.
They refuse to open detention center doors to Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-32077539146888492322018-06-11T13:06:00.001-04:002018-06-11T16:08:02.046-04:00Why it Means Something When De Niro Says itYou could spend many wasteful hours going back through at least 30 years of my public utterances--blogs, essays, articles, comments--but you'll never find an F-bomb in any of them. That's not me. It's not my most hated word--that would be the C-word--but it's right up there.
I shake my head a lot, signalling uninvited disgust at the thousands of times I see it on Twitter, on Facebook, in blogs, Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-3698059109137284272018-06-09T21:15:00.001-04:002018-06-24T10:09:12.282-04:00Democrats, Get Fierce
President Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act, on August 14, 1935. Attending were: (L-R) Representative Robert Doughton (D-NC), Senator Robert Wagner (D-NY), Representative John Dingell (D-MI), Representative Joshua Twing Brooks (D-Pennsylvania), Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, Senator Pat Harrison (D-MS), and Representative David Lewis (D-MD). (Library of Congress)
Five months fromRamona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-68400252137205851722018-05-07T11:11:00.000-04:002018-05-10T11:38:26.273-04:00Let's be Honest. Anti-Abortion Doesn't Make You Pro-Life.I'll get right to it: I'm on the side of every woman who chooses abortion as a solution to what she considers a problem in her life. I don't need to know her story. I don't need to insert myself in her decision-making. I don't need to be judge and jury as she goes through the act of aborting a fetus.
I do need to support her decision against those who chant "Abortion is murder" and "Baby killer!Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-52354404013346908742018-04-22T11:14:00.000-04:002018-04-22T11:43:44.752-04:00Earth Day: A revisitToday is Earth Day in America. The first, 48 years ago, was a big deal. It was 1970. We were in the mood to celebrate the earth and to warn against the destruction of our natural places. Now we're watching again as our supposed caretakers are licking their lips at the thought of all that land open to rape-for-profit.
I wrote and published this piece eight years ago so you'll note someRamona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-40732748661209907022018-03-28T09:25:00.001-04:002018-03-30T16:59:37.306-04:00In the Year of the Woman We're Going to Need Each Other
Women's Liberation protest, 1971
Enlightened women of America, if I say we're at our most vulnerable right now, right this minute, and our gains are becoming losses, would you be tempted to smack me down?
Would you rush to remind me of the Women's Marches, the "Me Too" movement, the multiplying numbers of women seeking public office?
Would you send me links to maybe a dozen men whose Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-46885084199678606732018-02-25T09:25:00.001-05:002018-02-26T20:50:57.405-05:00While Trump is Stealing the Show his Cronies are Stealing us BlindI'm sick of hearing Trump, seeing Trump, laughing at Trump, agonizing over Trump. I'm sick of Donald J. Trump, the squatter in the White House, making a mockery of our presidency.
He's a president like a third rate comic spoofing the highest job in the land would be president. His stake is only in drawing an audience; he has no feeling for what the real job would be like. It's beyond his Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-14247154373299756222018-02-15T08:30:00.001-05:002018-02-16T17:19:53.813-05:00The NRA is Killing Us and their Weapon is the Second AmendmentAnother massacre. Another killing field. Yesterday, sixteen kids and one teacher at at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida were murdered by a teenager blasting away with a semi-automatic weapon. So today we're in mourning--crying, howling, ranting about the unfairness. How could this happen? Why is this happening? Something must be done!
The same old shit. Nothing happens. Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-76003748543072592652018-02-07T19:06:00.000-05:002018-02-09T07:52:33.005-05:00The President is a Damned Nuisance. We Get it. Can we Move On?
It's been over a year now, and the squatter in the White House, that odd, clunky, rich guy who said of the presidency, "How hard could it be?"; that sleazy showman who, early on, saw merit in making fun of people whose only sin was in disagreeing with him (Congress, judges, the FBI, the press, TV pundits, Gold Star parents, Heads of State, heads of social programs...you name it); that ignorant, Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-18230230678383365152018-01-19T12:34:00.001-05:002018-01-21T11:21:39.647-05:00Our Bleeding Hearts Might Have Saved UsToday marks the anniversary of the Dread Fiend Trump's official entry into politics, not as dog catcher, not even as city clerk, but as President of these United States.
A year has passed and as much as we've spit and hollered, as often as we've watched the evidence of corruption pile up, Donald Trump is still president. He is every bit as bad at the job as we imagined. You might even say Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-90939680022695066002017-12-24T10:24:00.000-05:002017-12-24T10:28:48.357-05:00On Feeling the Holiday Spirit at Christmas
On Christmas Day, 1914, only four months into the brutality of World War I, a spontaneous miracle happened on the Western Front. On that day German and British soldiers laid down their arms and gathered together in No Man's Land to share food and cigarettes, sing Christmas carols, and play a few games of football.
On other battle lines along the front, "Merry Christmas" signs were hastily Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-17593803296159661172017-11-17T13:09:00.002-05:002018-08-17T07:57:07.558-04:00Al Franken Shouldn't Resign
Yes, I'll say it, and I hope it's not too late: Al Franken should not resign. He shouldn't be forced to resign, either by the Democrats who (rightly) can't abide double standards or the Republicans who would love to see a Democratic knock-down. I can agree that what he did to Leann Tweeden was stupid, gross, and thisclose to sexual predation, and still want him to stay where he is.
Leann's Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-25010551679122874892017-10-22T16:12:00.001-04:002017-10-23T19:24:31.054-04:00Me too: Every woman has her story.With the not-so-shocking sexual revelations about Harvey Weinstein, Bill O'Reilly, Bill Cosby, Anthony Weiner, James Toback, and, yes, our current president, Donald Trump, comes even more revelations from women who have suffered in silence for years and have now come forward, loud and clear.
Women's March, Washington DC, January, 2017
In recent weeks the hashtag #MeToo has become our social Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-88073345187970043032017-09-12T13:00:00.000-04:002017-09-12T18:02:09.937-04:00Reporting In: Getting My Life Back
Yesterday, 9/11/17, was a bittersweet day for me. I couldn't forget it marked the 16th anniversary of the day the Twin Towers went down in NYC, but the day was something of a celebration for me: It marked the last of 30 radiation treatments, ending, finally, a long journey that began last November, when a biopsy of a breast lump confirmed what we all suspected: cancer.
I've purposely Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-64548591454934096772017-07-17T08:53:00.000-04:002018-01-26T07:46:36.448-05:00Why Your Religion Shouldn't Be My ProblemMy cousin Arlene was a devout Catholic, so deeply involved with her church the priest at her funeral service told us he was nervous that he wouldn't do right by her last wishes, worried that she would be wagging her finger at him from somewhere up there, showing her disappointment if he somehow messed up. She planned her last rites down to her choice of music, of scripture, and even of altar Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-14095500494276946602017-06-10T09:26:00.001-04:002017-06-10T18:47:19.777-04:00How the G-Man Worked To Bring Down POTUS
After former FBI director James Comey's testimony on Thursday, there were questions about why he waited so long to go public with all he knew. He'd had two one-on-one meetings with Trump, along with several Trump-initiated phone calls, all deemed inappropriate, at the very least, by anyone who knows anything about how our system is supposed to work.
Comey first met with Trump at Trump Tower Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2772956368752433326.post-42834723280991292142017-05-26T14:03:00.001-04:002017-10-25T07:29:11.238-04:00Our First Un-American PresidentWhen Donald Trump rode down that golden escalator in June, 2015 and announced he would run for President of the United States, the guffaws could be heard round the world. What a colossal doofus! A shady real estate mogul, a beauty pageant owner, a dubious celebrity famous for firing people, saw himself as the perfect person to fill the highest job in the land. Clearly the run would be Ramona Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07160614050077886238noreply@blogger.com0